AUSTRIAN INSTITUTE FOR EUROPEAN SECURITY POLICY The European Union and NATO facing the challenge of the 21st century 1 Introduction The Treaty of Maastricht gave the European Foreign and Security Policy a new dimension. The Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) of the European Union was defined as a broad and comprehensive policy, including the framing of a common defence policy and defence. Already at the Hague Platform in 1987 EEC members had stated that a fully fledged European Union will be incomplete without a security dimension When the Maastricht Treaty was negotiated the security context in Europe had changed dramatically. The Iron Curtain between western and eastern Europe had come down. Germany was reuniting. Yugoslavia was going to war. Europeans were becoming more and more aware that they would have to assume a larger responsibility for the security and stability in the new Europe which was taking shape. In former Yugoslavia Europeans learnt the bitter lesson, that economic and political power alone does not work when the other side is willing to use force. Effective diplomacy therefore needs to be backed up by credible military means. In Amsterdam the Fifteen agreed that a common European Defence Policy will be framed step by step and that the Petersberg Tasks of crises management are to become tasks of the European Union. The new European policy of Great Britain and the decisions of the NATO Summit in Washington have opened the way to the important decisions of the European Councils of Cologne, Helsinki and Nice. The European Union has started to develop a genuine common European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP ). The building of effective military capabilities has been the main concern of this policy. In the past two years the EU has achieved more in the area of ESDP as in the fifty years before. The Union is on the way to become a Security and Defence Union. Also NATO has undergone a tremendous process of transformation. NATO is committed to a broad approach to security. While collective defence remains the central task of the Alliance, NATO has also become a central actor within the Euro-Atlantic area for co-operative security policy. Partnership, co-operation and dialogue are today essential instruments to promote security and stability. NATO also continues to be the bed-rock of the transatlantic link and the guarantor for continuing US engagement in Europe. NATO has taken in new members and is continuing to enlarge. NATO has assumed new missions and is started to be engaged in military crisis management. Command and force structures have been adjusted to the new security context and the new security challenges. NATO presents itself today as a new and transformed security and defence organisation, an organisation which is militarily effective and credible and continues to have a central role as anchor for the security and stability of Europe and the Euro-Atlantic area. At the beginning of the 21st century the main challenge for the EU and NATO is to build a strong new frame-work of EU-NATO co-operation on the basis of shared values, equality and in a spirit of partnership. The paper’s attempt is to inform and analyse developments, which have taken place within the EU and NATO and draw also conclusions for the necessary future co-operation between these two organisations. 2 I. The development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and a common European Security and Defence policy (ESDP) of the European Union: from Maastricht to Nice and beyond The European Union, a political union The European Union is more than an economic union. The Union is above all a political project. When the Community- building process started in the 1950s the Founding Fathers main goal was to overcome traditional national policies of the European nation-states and to create a new European political framework based on common rules of law, common procedures and institutions and an independent European judicial control assuring that in future the rule of law should govern relations among member states. The Community is above all a Community of peace. The economic integration process was not only seen as a means to create in Europe a zone of economic welfare and strength but a means to create a stable order of peace. Schuman said „ Building Europe is building peace”. The political finality of the Communities was already laid down in the Rome Treaties. The European Communities and the present European Union are therefore from their creation onward : • a community of values, • a community of solidarity, a solidarity which is essential for the functioning of the Union, • a community of peace, which has made armed conflict among EU-members unthinkable and allowed to overcome century old national rivalries among European states. The building of the European Union has been a success story since the process of European integration started. It has been so far the most successful political project of modern European history. It created the largest and most successful zone of peace and prosperity on the continent. The integration process brought not only welfare to the peoples of Europe but also peace: Peace through integration. The European Union has become the first economic power of the world and a major global political player. Today the European Union has to assume not only European but also global responsibilities. The Union which is also a union of destiny must enhance the security of the Union and its members as well as protect and foster its own interests and that of its members. The development of the common external action until the Treaty of Maastricht The Rome Treaty transferred a number of competencies in the economic and trade area to the European Economic Community which became community matters under the responsibility of the Community institutions. The treaty gave the European Commission the task to implement a Common Foreign Trade policy. The external action of the Communities was therefore at the beginning mainly external economic policy. These policies were implemented successfully creating a network of international trade and co-operation agreements, association treaties and agreements on development co-operation. The Economic Communities thus became a major actor in international economic affairs. 3 Although the treaties did not include any provisions for co-operation in political foreign affairs member-states started in the late 1960s to co-operate in this area in pragmatic way, exchanging information and consulting each other on an increasing number of issues. The co- operation in political international affairs among members of the European Community developed therefore gradually over many years. It was subject of several political European initiatives. 1 In 1961and 1962 France presented the "Fouchet Plan" and proposed a "Treaty on the Union of States", which was to lead to a unified foreign policy, the strengthening of Member States' security from any aggression and the co-ordination of defence policies. In the long term the Treaty on the Union of States was to encompass the European Communities. The French initiative was rejected by its partners for two main reasons: the desire to preserve the European Communities from a form of co-operation deemed excessively inter-State and the desire to preserve the defence link with the United States and NATO. 2 At the Hague Summit in 1969 the Six reaffirmed the need to unify Europe politically. In 1970 the "Davignon" Report was adopted which marked the beginning of European Political Co- operation (EPC). The co-operation related exclusively to foreign policy. The Six agreed to inform and consult each other on major international policy problems with the purpose to strengthen Member States' solidarity through regular meetings between diplomatic services. In 1973 the Member States decided to step up the rate of meetings, to seek common approaches and to implement a concerted diplomacy. The Commission was associated to the consultation process in order to ensure a more coherent external action. Ten years later, in Stuttgart, a new step was taken: the political and economic (not military) aspects of security were included in the scope of EPC. 3 In 1979 the EEC decided an economic embargo as a reaction to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Embargo measures were also taken in the Falkland war. From 1970 to 1986 the EPC was the result of a pragmatic, intensive and informal intergovernmental consultation process among member states without creating permanent structures. The EEC countries co-ordinated their policies on international issues and worked out common positions in international organisations and at international conferences. The political co-operation of the EEC countries proved very successful at the CSCE conferences in Geneva and Helsinki. The EEC became the key actor of the conference and contributed decisively to the outcome of the CSCE. Political co-operation became more and more a central element of the foreign policy of member states. The EEC also acquired a distinct identity in the world. It took until the Single European Act in 1986, which reformed the European Communities and made provision for the establishment of a single common market until 1992, to create also a legal basis for the European foreign policy co-operation. An "EPC" Secretariat and the network of European correspondence linking the Foreign Ministries of member-states were 1 See Heinrich Schneider, Die Gemeinsame Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik der Europäischen Union, Österreichs Jahrbuch für internationale Sicherheitspolitik 1997, Styria, p. 19ff. Heinrich Schneider’s contribution describes the development from EPC to CFSP 2 See Elfriede Regelsberger, Philippe de Shoutheete de Tervant and Wolfgang Wessels, From EPC to CFSP: Does Maastricht Push the EU Toward a Role as a Global Power? , in: Elfriede Regelsberger, Philippe de Shoutheete de Tervant and Wolfgang Wessels, ed., Foreign Policy of The European Union.